Contributions to Ubuntu

MOTU Adventures

Fixed workrave (RSI app) for Jaunty by discovering bug, finding and triaging the duplicates, notifying MOTU, and putting a patched version in my PPA for testing/use while a MOTU patched Debian. LP: 310551

#ubuntu-bugs-announce

Author of EeeBotu, the bug announcing bot in #ubuntu-bugs-announce, which has been announcing bugs since 5/27/2008. There was previously a bot which did this, but the maintainer and bot left, and it was gone for weeks. This caused the number of people in the channel to slump, which I imagine also reduced overall triaging since myself and others used this bug announcement channel as our main source of bugs to work on. I decided to write a bot in Python to replace the old one, and it is now operating in full capacity.

Bug Triage

BugSquad member since 9/2007 and BugControl member since 3/2008. As of 04/2009 there are 1,231 total bugs related to me.

Reviewing Bug Control Applications

In order to become a member of BugControl, one must submit an application and be approved by several current BugControl members. It can be challenging to get enough responses to become a member and some applications fall through the cracks, so I have resolved to spend time reviewing these applications so that we can have more (greatly needed) BugControl members and triagers.

Alpha/Beta Testing

Tested alpha/beta releases since Hardy, filing bugs and triaging existing ones, notifying the correct people to get the issues addressed. Prominent bugs include:

Jaunty and Karmic

Too numerous to name

Intrepid

267761 Wireless on Atheros 5213A drops often, is slow, and ath5k_pci consumes large amounts of CPU.

Hardy

#188764, "probe screen resolution at boot". You may have noticed on a fresh install of Hardy (Alpha 5 or earlier that usplash did not display at the proper resolution. I argued this would be many users' first impression of Ubuntu and that it was of relative importance to look nice. The issue was satisfactorily fixed in ubiquity by writing the resolution to usplash on a graphical install, which will fix the issue for most users. The ideal solution is to probe at each boot, which was determined to be too invasive for Hardy, but should be the mechanism used in Intrepid.

#193617, "Hardy rhythmbox stops screen from blanking on laptop lid close". With the power-manager plugin active in Rhythmbox, Rhythmbox will attempt to deny lid-closing policy actions in g-p-m while music is playing. The use case here is that you may normally want your laptop to suspend or hibernate on closing the lid, but you may also want to be able to play music with the lid closed, to save power or space. After arguing the importance of this issue and having it increased, g-p-m was patched to always blank the screen on lid close, if it is supposed to. I would like to think that as a result of my work on this bug, a few kWh will be saved as Ubuntu users across the world play music with their laptop lid closed.

#78038 "rhythmbox interferes with suspend". This was a nasty bug that refused to let laptops suspend or hibernate on critical battery if Rhythmbox was playing music and the power-manager plugin was active. After some debating, the power-manager plugin was disabled by default in Rhythmbox (as it was in previous releases of Ubuntu). I really had to push hard for this but thanks to another user or two this is fixed, and I am certain data loss will be prevented as a result!

Things I'd (Really) Like to See in Ubuntu

These are bugs which are still open and that I find important in Ubuntu, and other issues that I think are important to improve the overall user experience of Ubuntu.

Blueprint: Universal Proxy Settings. Currently in Ubuntu the proxy must be set in (at least) three different places to obtain internet access OS-wide. This is especially tedious for users who have a proxy at work but not at home, and must switch all of these daily. I would love to see a universal proxy mechanism in Ubuntu, which can be associated on a per-connection/profile basis. Unfortunately this blueprint doesn't seem to be going anywhere. If it is appropriate it may be a job for me.

Bug #136702: "nautilus 'replace file' dialog box could give more information". In Gnome, the replace dialog for files doesn't show any useful information like other operating systems, such as file sizes and modification dates. This information is critical for deciding which file to keep, and without this information in a dialog it can be tedious to open another folder and compare both manually, especially for multiple files. The upstream bug in Gnome is 7 years old. This bug is embarrassing for Ubuntu, as this should be a staple of any graphical file browser. Luckily it appears this bug is picking up steam upstream and is targeted for Gnome 2.24 and as a result Intrepid.

(In Karmic!) Gnome Bug 528559: "Add details for applications blocking a device". Currently if a mounted device is in use, such as a USB thumbdrive, it can be challenging to remove it if you have no idea what is holding onto it. At least once I have had such a hard time removing a USB device safely that I had to shut down. Multiple people are working on this however, and have a dialog which displays the "offending" applications, so I imagine this will be in Intrepid+1, if not Intrepid.

Desired Launchpad Improvements

A way to mark a bug as a sub-issue of another bug. A bug, while not a duplicate of another bug, may be solved by the fix of another bug. It would be useful to mark such cases as sub-issues, for purposes of awareness, improved communication, and easier management. This would also increase the usefulness of Launchpad Janitor, who could not only close a bug but potentially an entire sub-tree of bugs. It would also allow searching on which bugs would fix the largest number of other bugs; in other words, which bugs are holding back Ubuntu the most.

Bug dependencies, just like Blueprint dependencies. Similar to the above suggestion, a bug may require the fix of another bug before it itself can be addressed or fixed, though the dependent fix doesn't solve the former issue.

A standard tag to apply to bugs which are marked as Invalid because the bug is a duplicate, although the duplicate bug is not known (such as bugs #180064, #209999). This would allow BugSquad members to search for the specific duplicate of such bugs at a later date, helping the user who filed the bug, and properly drawing more attention to the issue as well.

Testimonials

Michael has been instrumental in maintaining the automated bug notification system in IRC, and active as both a participant and infrastructure supporter for bugsquad activities. Michael is a consistently responsive and helpful participant in the community. -- EmmetHikory

Michael has been doing good work in the bugsquad for a while, and hosts the bot which many of us find valuable. He is always friendly and helpful on the IRC channel. -- JamesWestby